Don’t tear down walls to get through; just knock on the door. God will open it.

Study and memorize Matthew 7:7-8 with us this week.

[NOTE: Next week, Oct 11-17, is our planned 1-week break from Matthew 7.]

“Ask with confidence and humility.
Seek with care and application.
Knock with earnestness and perseverance.”
– Adam Clarke

Walls Stop Us

Has your home ever been flooded? If you live in a flood-prone area or along the coast when a hurricane strikes, you’re likely familiar with the problems of flooding.

When our local disaster relief group PAR cleans up homes after hurricanes, they often have to tear down walls that have severe water damage so they can be rebuilt. It’s hard work and if not done properly, can cause additional damage to the structure of the home.

In our everyday lives, we often try to tear down walls, too, perhaps creating even more damage along the way and using up our emotional and relational energy.

• We judge what’s not ours to judge (Matthew 7:1).
• We try to extract specks from others when we have logs in our eyes (Matthew 7:3).
• We throw holy things to dogs and give pearls to pigs (Matthew 7:6).

Trying to barge through a wall is too hard. It stops us.

And it’s unnecessary.

Doors Are the Better Way

Here are this week’s memory verses.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
Matthew 7:7-8

In these verses we discover there is a better way to get to the other side than ripping out walls.

1. LOOK FOR THE DOOR

We don’t have to try to go through a wall. There is a door instead. Go to the source; go to God.

Charles Spurgeon said,

“His doors are meant to open: they were made on purpose for entrance; and so the blessed gospel of God is made on purpose for you to enter into life and peace. It would be of no use to knock at a wall, but you may wisely knock at a door, for it is arranged for opening.”

Don’t try to go through a wall. It’s not an opening.

2. KNOCK ON THE DOOR

Try the door instead. Knock on it. Again and again. Don’t leave too soon if you don’t get an answer right away.

Be persistent in your knocking (Luke 18:1-8). In the original language, “ask, seek, knock” are in the present imperative tense. That means they imply continuous action, not one-time events: Ask and keep asking. Seek and keep seeking. Knock and keep knocking.

3. TRUST GOD TO OPEN THE DOOR

Anybody can knock on a door. It takes no special skills, no special tools. Trust God to open when you knock (don’t try to kick it in), and then take what He gives you. Let God be in control. He’s the One who holds all good gifts. He wants to give them to us when we ask Him (James 1:5-6).

Rewards on the Other Side of the Door

And then? Jesus said everyone who asks, receives. The one who seeks, finds. To the one who knocks, it will be opened.

• You’ll receive exactly what you need, not just what you think you need.
• You’ll find the One you’re looking for who can help you in everything.
• You can walk through doors that God opens for you.

We don’t want to live in homes with ripped-out walls. No one wants to crawl through sledge-hammered holes to get from one room to the next.

God gives us a better option: Just knock. He’ll open the door.

Has God opened a door for you that you couldn’t have entered otherwise? Testify to His goodness. Share in the comments.

Can our gifts hurt more than they help? How do we decide what to give and to whom?

Memorize and study Matthew 7:6 with us this week.

Extravagant Gift-Giving

Maria was about 10 years old. We had become friends the week we were in El Salvador.

On the Sunday morning our group was packing up to leave, Maria ran home to get something. She returned with a box. It contained a giraffe cup and saucer.

She handed it to me. It was a parting gift. I didn’t want to accept it. It was likely a prized possession.

Should I, the American woman from a wealthy country, take this present from the Salvadorian child who had much less to give?

What Did Jesus Mean?

When we read this week’s memory verse, we wonder what Jesus meant.

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”
Matthew 7:6

It can be taken two ways. Jesus might have been meant:

(1) Don’t give a valuable gift to the undeserving. They won’t take care of it.

But Jesus wouldn’t say some people are too worthless or undeserving of His love. He values everybody, wanting all to know Him and be saved.

Perhaps he meant this?

(2) Don’t push people into accepting what they’re not ready for. It won’t help them.

The difference is subtle. But the difference is real.

In Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard has a name for those who give pearls to pigs: “pearl pushers.”

Willard gives this illustration. Parents who push religion on kids often cause them to rebel. Trying to “manipulate or impress others into rightness and goodness with our condemning and our ‘pearls’ or holy things” can backfire.

They are pearl pushers.

Give Helpful Gifts

Sometimes people just aren’t ready yet for the gifts we try to give them. Our gifts wouldn’t be helpful at this point. It would like shoving pearls into pigs. Pigs can’t digest pearls.

Willard says,

“The point is not the waste of the ‘pearl’ but that the person given the pearl is not helped.”

We often want to give extravagantly. We can become overeager to share the good news with friends, ready or not. Or we want to give unsolicited advice that helped us.

But giving unwanted gifts can turn people against us. They become suspicious, wondering what we want in return. They don’t want to feel indebted to us, so they resent the gift. We lose their trust.

Just as teenagers don’t want our religion shoved down their throat, or butterflies don’t want their cocoons stripped off them too soon, our premature gifts or inappropriate gifts can be more harmful than helpful.

Instead, we can try to discern the recipient’s need and ability to receive our gift before we give it. Be judicious about pulling out our holy things. Get to know the person first before we shower them with pearls they won’t wear.

God does this with us. He sometimes waits to give us the right gift until we’re ready to use it properly. We’re not always ready for certain blessings because we’re too immature to handle them, just as we don’t give expensive jewelry to a toddler.

What Are Your Pearls?

When my young friend Maria tried to give me the cup and saucer, I first said no. I couldn’t take this! It was too much, too expensive from her.

But when I saw how much it meant to her, I couldn’t not take it. I received her gift, her pearls, as pearls, with excitement, and with love.

Perhaps the cup and saucer has come to mean even more to me than it could to her. For the past 9 years, I’ve kept it front and center on my bedroom shelf. It reminds me of unselfish giving. Of quick love. Of tender hearts.

I showed it recently to my 2-year-old granddaughter. She immediately wanted to play with it. I pulled it down from the shelf. She’s still too young to be given free rein with it, but we sat together with it on the carpet and examined it. I want her to understand it is special.

It’s one of my pearls.

What is a pearl you can give to someone this week? Who is ready to receive a holy thing from you and who is not?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Blurry vision leads to extra problems. Take the log out of your eye so you can see clearer.

Study and memorize Matthew 7:5 with us this week.

I thought I’d be the exception. I wouldn’t need glasses. My vision would stay 20/20 despite my age. I would will it to happen.

But, no surprise, you can’t just will yourself to see clearly.

I had my yearly eye exam last Thursday. It’s the only doctor I look forward to visiting because so much depends on it. If I went to keep reading books, keep seeing my granddaughters’ faces up close, keep threading a needle, I need my vision.

Jesus was giving more than optometry advice when He spoke to His listeners on the mountainside. Listen to our memory verse for this week:

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:5

If we want to see clearly, we first have to realize when there’s a problem. And be willing to correct it.

Otherwise, we just create more problems. For ourselves and for others.

I don’t know what your logs are. I have plenty of my own to wrestle with.

But whatever each of our weaknesses are, we need to take care of them before we can adequately help other people.

If we don’t? We’re hypocrites. Just pretenders. Acting as if we’re capable, when we’re not.

My eye doctor said my vision had not worsened since my last visit. That was good news. But I still need glasses to see up close. Maybe I’ll use them to take out a log or two along the way….

Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

Unwanted Gifts

In between the births of our 2nd and 3rd children, we switched churches. As my due date approached for our 3rd daughter, the ladies in my new small group I attended wanted to host a baby shower for me.

But I didn’t need a baby shower. I actually didn’t want another baby shower. I had all the baby things already. And I was still a relative newcomer; I didn’t want extra attention drawn to myself.

They kept insisting. I felt awkward. It seemed rude to keep declining their offer, yet it seemed worse to agree to gifts I didn’t need.

We’ve all received gifts we didn’t want. Maybe a sweater we’d never wear or a knick-knack we’d never set out or food we’d never eat.

I’ve given my share of useless gifts too.

But sometimes? Gifts are not only useless, they may be hurtful.

Actually, I was afraid to get another baby shower. Our 2nd baby had died right after birth. To receive a baby shower for this 3rd child felt too risky.

When Our Giving Hurts More Than Helps

Our giving hurts more than helps when we give unsolicited advice. Unwanted help. Critical suggestions. It’s what Jesus was saying in this week’s memory verses:

3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
4 Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye?
Matthew 7:3-4

What do our logs look like?

• When we offer to help but we have bad motives, we have a log in our eye.
• When we give to get something for ourselves in return, we have a log in our eye.
• When we criticize a friend to make ourselves feel better, we have a log in our eye.

We’d do well to take the psalmist’s advice first:

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 139:23-24

Self-awareness isn’t the same as self-absorption. Self-awareness is part of being kind. It’s taking a look in the mirror to straighten ourselves up before we give offensive advice to others on how to clean themselves up.

A Better Gift

With better vision, we’re then able to give better gifts (such as, understanding, compassion, encouragement, prayer). We can actually be helpful if someone needs a hand getting a speck out of their eye instead of poking our dirty logs of condemnation and judgment into their tender eyes. We may even be asked to help more often as we grow and become blessings to others.

The ladies offering to give me a baby shower finally convinced me to say yes when they offered a time of celebration instead of a time of gift-giving. They blessed me with words of encouragement and camaraderie. I felt loved by their gift of prayer and presence.

I appreciated and needed those gifts.

Jesus wasn’t telling His listeners that day on the mountain to not help a brother out. But He was saying to check yourself first for logs and beams before you help others with specks and motes.

Please share your thoughts in the comments.